Osher Davida and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Player ratings23 Nov 2026
Kristijan Belić was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.49. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
One weekend, judged against everybody else's. Kristijan Belić has come out on top of it, and for most footballers a weekly award is the only silverware a career ever produces.
Ninety specific minutes wanted a different sort of player, and the manager picked one. He is not out of form and he is not in the side, and both are true.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Maccabi Tel Aviv this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kristijan Belić is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Maccabi Tel Aviv, and both men came out saying it was fine.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Hapoel Acre in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Maccabi Tel Aviv. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
They sit in position 11 and they will be waiting. Away form is where a season shows its true character, and this side has a point to make about its own.
Mohamed Camara and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Osher Davida falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
He won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 9 combined actions and a mark of 6.72, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
It needed Dor Peretz to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Hapoel Beer Sheva, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
Shots: 11, enough of them from close enough that a striker in form scores two. He is not a striker in form.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Omer Atzili chose the glass-half-full version of 1‑1; the supporters left with the other one.
Nobody at Maccabi Tel Aviv is suggesting he is out of form. The manager simply wanted somebody with a different set of qualities for ninety specific minutes, and there is nothing a player can train to fix that.
Chances created: 9. Nothing on the scoresheet and everything in the match: the pass before the pass, over and over, until the defence stopped guessing right.
In brief
The dugoutKervin Andrade asks for a word with the manager
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
The dugout2 Nov 2026
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 1‑3 defeat, delivered by Omer Atzili to a room that had heard them before.
It will be explained as a change for the team and it may even be one. Nobody who has worn one believes that, and neither does the man who has just had it taken away.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
The shape wanted a different profile against this opponent, which is a real football answer and no comfort at all to the man it is about. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
A decision that decides nothing on the pitch and everything in the room. The manager has said, without saying it, whose voice he wants heard when his own is not there.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kristijan Belić is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
The board was up, the win was priced in, and then Maccabi Netanya scored. There is no worse minute to concede in and the ground emptied in the silence that follows one.
1‑1, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.
The dugout26 Oct 2026
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Omer Atzili chose the glass-half-full version of 1‑1; the supporters left with the other one.
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Sayed Abu Farchi is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Tyrese Asante and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Marked 8.23 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Ion Nicolăescu and Maccabi Tel Aviv agree another 4 years.
Bnei Yehuda next, and one man in the Maccabi Tel Aviv dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
Ninety minutes of very little, and then everything at once. The winner arrived in the 87th, and Bnei Sakhnin spent what remained of the match appealing to the referee rather than chasing the ball.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Kervin Andrade provided it, and the 8.07 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kristijan Belić is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Maccabi Tel Aviv this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 21-year-old it feels ownership of. Kervin Andrade has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Every club pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time it has been tried.
7.87, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kristijan Belić is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Nobody at Maccabi Tel Aviv is suggesting he is out of form. The manager simply wanted somebody with a different set of qualities for ninety specific minutes, and there is nothing a player can train to fix that.
In brief
Player ratingsThe pass was always on for Emir Sahiti
It finished 1‑1, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Omer Atzili chose the glass-half-full version of 1‑1; the supporters left with the other one.
The manager wanted a different profile for this opponent, which is a real football reason and no consolation. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room and never have. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and at Maccabi Tel Aviv that is a harder question to answer.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Flamengo have kept their man, and Maccabi Tel Aviv go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Elad Madmon has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
The manager has not finished forgetting Dor Peretz's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Itamar Noy, and the manager let it.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Omer Atzili, on a 1‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
In brief
The dugoutThe plan did not have a place for Osher Davida
Hapoel Kfar Saba wanted more than $2.4M and the board would not go there. Walked away, for now, which in a transfer window means until somebody blinks.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 5 arrived, 4 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
Emir Sahiti and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Kristijan Belić was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Gabi Kanichowsky has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Maccabi Tel Aviv can pretend not to have heard.
Maccabi Tel Aviv have gone to Hapoel Haifa with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
The offer went to Hapoel Kfar Saba this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
Maccabi Tel Aviv asked and Hapoel Beer Sheva said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $2.4M — a club that wants Gilbert Bandama enough to be asked twice.
Maccabi Tel Aviv had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Bragantino, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Tyrese Asante was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Maccabi Tel Aviv, and it is not being withdrawn.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Ben Lederman had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
$4.5M was the most the club would pay and Maccabi Haifa were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
The deal with Bragantino is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
Senior shirt numbers handed to boys the coaches have known since they were twelve. Most will not make it and all of them have already done the hard part.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Osher Davida was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The offer went to Maccabi Haifa this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
Maccabi Tel Aviv offered $4.7M; Kashima Antlers said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
The offer from Bnei Sakhnin for Sayed Abu Farchi was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $4.9M — a club that wants Pierre Cornud enough to be asked twice.
Osher Davida was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Maccabi Netanya pay $47.0K, and the deal is done. The number reads well on a balance sheet; whether it reads well on the pitch is next season's question.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kristijan Belić is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Maccabi Tel Aviv have gone to Kashima Antlers with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
Maccabi Tel Aviv asked and Maccabi Haifa said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Maccabi Tel Aviv offered $1.7M; Libertad said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
The name of Itay Ben-Hemo has come up in conversations Maccabi Tel Aviv were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Maccabi Tel Aviv, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Maccabi Tel Aviv have gone to Libertad with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Maccabi Tel Aviv heard it as anything else.
Mohamed Camara was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Osher Davida was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
49 months left and silence from upstairs — no offer, no talks, nothing for his people to answer. Clubs that let a calendar do their negotiating usually end up negotiating with the calendar.
Boca Juniors have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.